♫anna♫
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Mar 6, 2011 6:17:37 GMT
Fired For Smoking Cigarettes?www.thebostonchannel.com/r/9959391/detail.html QUOTE: BOSTON -- If you're an ethnic minority or a pregnant woman, you're protected by law from discrimination in the workplace. But what if you're a smoker? Team 5 Investigates has found employers can legally extinguish your employment for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with your job performance. NewsCenter 5's Sean Kelly reported that Scott Rodrigues has been smoking for 15 years. He said that he didn't expect to hear, "You're fired." "They said, 'Because you have nicotine in your system, you're fired"'" Kelly said. "I said, 'Well, I'm going to try and call corporate and see what I can do about it.' And they said, 'Well, actually, you are terminated. There's nothing you can do about it," Rodrigues said. Last month, Rodrigues was still considered a new employee by the company, Scotts Lawn Service in Sagamore Beach. He had a uniform and earned a paycheck. Then, the results of his drug test showed that he's a smoker. "They were trying to have a smoke-free company, but no one explained to me that they'd be drug testing for nicotine," he said.That means employees cannot smoke at work or in their private life. Scotts said it is paying to help current employees quit. Rodrigues' boss showed him the door. "They're legal, and if we can smoke cigarettes legally, I don't think they should be able to say, 'We don't want people smoking, so we're going to give you a drug test now, and if you have nicotine in your system, you're done,'" Rodrigues said. According to the company, it's an economic issue. The company said it is trying to reduce escalating health care rates, and it claims each smoker could cost the company an additional $4,000 a year. That raises insurance premiums. Representatives said, "It's unfair for us to ask our employees to pay for the cost of smoking." "The question isn't just smoking off the premises. The question is, can an employer regulate an employee's behavior when the employee is not on the job?" Boston University health law professor Leonard Glantz said. Glantz called it bigotry. First, it's the smokers; next, it could be people who are obese, skiers or people who ride motorcycles. Don't they present health risks, he asked? "Can an employer say, 'If you have a bumper sticker on your car for a Democrat, that I am going to fire you because I think Republicans are better for my business'? Those arguments are exactly the same as the argument for restricting smokers," Glantz said. At least 28 states have laws against firing smokers. Some of them restrict employers from banning any legal activity a worker does during off hours. Massachusetts is not one of them, which means the chance of Rodrigues getting his job back has all but burned out.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2011 7:55:42 GMT
Can bosses just fire people for that sort of reason in the US? In Britain it would almost certainly be classed as unfair dismissal, and I think that would apply even if the contract specified a non smoker, provided the worker didn't reek of tobacco.
But then, we don't have to rely on our employment for health care.
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
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karma:
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Mar 6, 2011 8:29:06 GMT
Hi SkyLark! I'm rather surprised too. Apparently cigarette smoking isn't seen as a "civil right" in many parts of the US.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2011 18:59:13 GMT
Dunno about a civil right, but unless you are harming other people with your smoke,I can't see the reason to treat it as a wrong....at least (as the unlucky guy has pointed out) no more of a sin than eating too much.
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Post by Synonym on Mar 6, 2011 19:09:32 GMT
It seems they are using a similar argument not to employ smokers as some use to not employ women of child-bearing age: risks to the company. I suppose that where you stand on the latter should affect where you stand on the former?
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
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karma:
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Mar 7, 2011 13:03:42 GMT
Cost of smoking: You’re firedwww.statepress.com/2011/02/14/cost-of-smoking-you%E2%80%99re-fired/ QUOTE: By Daniel O'Connor February 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm As the Monty Python proverb goes, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Except maybe smokers. Since Reader’s Digest published “Cancer by the Carton” in 1952, the Spanish Inquisition is exactly what the tobacco world has grown to expect. Smokers at ASU are all too familiar with this idea. Last spring, Tempe’s Undergraduate Student Government attempted to make the University a smoke-free campus. Smokers are demonized so frequently in the media that it’s almost politically incorrect not to harass them on the street. First it was smoking at work. Then it was restaurants and bars. Then it was all public places. Now it seems that their bad habit might cost smokers a job opportunity, too. According to a recent New York Times article, an increasing number of medical businesses, like hospitals, are adopting “tobacco-free hiring” policies.
Under these new regulations, the businesses would turn away job applicants who smoke or test positive for nicotine in a urine test. A few of the companies even included existing employees in the policy –– quit, or you’re fired.The Times article stated reasons for such a policy include: “to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living.” Understandable, but this is too much. After all, smokers are risking enough — their lives. According to a 2010 tobacco-trend report by the American Lung Association, “Cigarette smoking has been identified as the leading cause of preventable morbidity (disease and illness) and premature mortality (death) in the United States” and is the cause of one in five American deaths. So why penalize employees at work for engaging in a private activity outside of work? When did it become OK to treat tobacco as if it were an illegal substance and its users were abusers? No question: Smoking is a terrible habit. But smokers are not bad people, despite how much we would like our youth to believe it. Health and productivity are two different subjects. So, if you want to talk about job efficiency, a recent article in Newsweek suggested that smoking actually increases cognitive functioning. The article, citing the results of a 2010 National Institute on Drug Abuse report, said, “Nicotine, they found, has ‘significant positive effects’ on fine motor skills, the accuracy of short-term memory, some forms of attention and working memory, among other basic cognitive skills.” The American Heart Association reported that approximately 24.8 million men and 21.1 million women are smokers, according to a 2008 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics. Sorry, hospitals, but you need a more convincing argument. And what about other bad habits, like alcohol or fast food? The American Heart Association also reported that many children are obese. Based on the 2009 update of their overweight and obesity statistics, “Among children ages 2–19, 23.4 million are overweight and obese.” And once you get to American adults ages twenty or more the number of overweight and obese becomes staggering — 145 million. That’s nearly half of the U.S. population. Smokers have suffered enough for their cigarettes. At this point, if they continue, society and employers should respect their right to do it. These new hospital policies are a Supreme Court case just waiting to happen.
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Post by iamjumbo on Mar 8, 2011 16:10:18 GMT
the irrefutable reality is that no employer has a right to know ANYTHING about what you do outside of the workplace, as long as it doesn't violate the law. end of story
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
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karma:
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Mar 10, 2011 1:51:18 GMT
Hospitals Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Banwww.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11smoking.html?_r=2&ref=health QUOTE: More hospitals and medical businesses in many states are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants, saying they want to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living. The policies reflect a frustration that softer efforts — like banning smoking on company grounds, offering cessation programs and increasing health care premiums for smokers — have not been powerful-enough incentives to quit. The new rules essentially treat cigarettes like an illegal narcotic. Applications now explicitly warn of “tobacco-free hiring,” job seekers must submit to urine tests for nicotine and new employees caught smoking face termination. This shift — from smoke-free to smoker-free workplaces — has prompted sharp debate, even among anti-tobacco groups, over whether the policies establish a troubling precedent of employers intruding into private lives to ban a habit that is legal. “If enough of these companies adopt theses policies and it really becomes difficult for smokers to find jobs, there are going to be consequences,” said Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, who has written about the trend. “Unemployment is also bad for health.” Smokers have been turned away from jobs in the past — prompting more than half the states to pass laws rejecting bans on smokers — but the recent growth in the number of companies adopting no-smoker rules has been driven by a surge of interest among health care providers, according to academics, human resources experts and tobacco opponents. There is no reliable data on how many businesses have adopted such policies. But people tracking the issue say there are enough examples to suggest the policies are becoming more mainstream, and in some states courts have upheld the legality of refusing to employ smokers. For example, hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas, among others, stopped hiring smokers in the last year and more are openly considering the option. “We’ve had a number of inquiries over the last 6 to 12 months about how to do this,” said Paul Terpeluk, a director at the Cleveland Clinic, which stopped hiring smokers in 2007 and has championed the policy. “The trend line is getting pretty steep, and I’d guess that in the next few years you’d see a lot of major hospitals go this way.” A number of these organizations have justified the new policies as advancing their institutional missions of promoting personal well-being and finding ways to reduce the growth in health care costs. About 1 in 5 Americans still smoke, and smoking remains the leading cause of preventable deaths. And employees who smoke cost, on average, $3,391 more a year each for health care and lost productivity, according to federal estimates. “We felt it was unfair for employees who maintained healthy lifestyles to have to subsidize those who do not,” Steven C. Bjelich, chief executive of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., which stopped hiring smokers last month. “Essentially that’s what happens.” Two decades ago — after large companies like Alaska Airlines, Union Pacific and Turner Broadcasting adopted such policies — 29 states and the District of Columbia passed laws, with the strong backing of the tobacco lobby and the American Civil Liberties Union, that prohibit discrimination against smokers or those who use “lawful products.” Some of those states, like Missouri, make an exception for health care organizations. A spokesman for Philip Morris said the company was no longer actively working on the issue, though it remained strongly opposed to the policies. Meghan Finegan, a spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union, which represents 1.2 million health care workers, said the issue was “not on our radar yet.” One concern voiced by groups like the National Workrights Institute is that such policies are a slippery slope — that if they prove successful in driving down health care costs, employers might be emboldened to crack down on other behavior by their workers, like drinking alcohol, eating fast food and participating in risky hobbies like motorcycle riding. The head of the Cleveland Clinic was both praised and criticized when he mused in an interview two years ago that, were it not illegal, he would expand the hospital policy to refuse employment to obese people. “There is nothing unique about smoking,” said Lewis Maltby, president of the Workrights Institute, who has lobbied vigorously against the practice. “The number of things that we all do privately that have negative impact on our health is endless. If it’s not smoking, it’s beer. If it’s not beer, it’s cheeseburgers. And what about your sex life?” Many companies add their own wrinkle to the smoking ban. Some even prohibit nicotine patches. Some companies test urine for traces of nicotine, while others operate on the honor system.
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Post by carolyn on Apr 11, 2011 12:11:44 GMT
I never smoked but my sister who works at GE has just enforced a strict smoking policy.
They cannot smoke on the property, if they want to smoke they have to clock out and drive away from the property.
It has helped my sister to quit smoking period
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Post by alanseago on Apr 11, 2011 12:25:16 GMT
Land of the Free! I gave up smoking 30 years ago, not from pressure, I just realised that it was ridiculous. I live in a land where wine is served in the works canteen, smoking areas are often provided and we all pay our own insurance premiums.
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Post by carolyn on Apr 11, 2011 12:55:41 GMT
Well it is not smokers who are the only ones being discriminated against it is the overweight. A lot of different jobs including GE has a weight loss incentive program and if you are overweight and do not join you are looked down upon Doesnt sound like Land of the Free to me
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Post by alanseago on Apr 11, 2011 19:01:58 GMT
I have never come across 'GE' whoever it or he may be in France but there are many corpulent Gauloises smokers (much less than before). I have been looked down upon from various heights in my life, it has never caused me any stress or distress since I joined the international society known as adults.
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Post by carolyn on Apr 11, 2011 19:30:16 GMT
I have never come across 'GE' whoever it or he may be in France but there are many corpulent Gauloises smokers (much less than before). I have been looked down upon from various heights in my life, it has never caused me any stress or distress since I joined the international society known as adults. General Electric What stress? where did I say it was causing stress? looked down upon yes
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
e x a l t | s m i t e
karma:
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Apr 11, 2011 20:35:55 GMT
Mr. Rodrigues of course is going to court over his firing for testing postive for nicotine in a blood test.!blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20061127/052877.html QUOTE: The Boston Globe - Nov 29, 2006 www.boston.com/business/ticker/2006/11/mass_smoker_sue.htmlMass. smoker sues over firingBy Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe staff A Buzzards Bay man has filed a civil rights lawsuit against The Scotts Company, the lawn care giant, which fired him after a drug test showed nicotine in his urine, putting him in violation of a company policy forbidding employees to smoke on or off the job. The suit, filed today in Suffolk Superior Court, is believed to be the first in the state brought by an employee who was terminated for engaging in legal activities away from the workplace. Scotts announced last year that it would no longer employ smokers, a policy company officials said was motivated by a desire to improve employee wellness and drive down healthcare costs. But civil libertarians say the policy is a violation of personal privacy rights, and could be used to mask age discrimination or other illegal behavior. "Employers should be greatly concerned about how employees perform their jobs and what happens in the workplace, but how employees want to lead their private lives is their own business," said Boston lawyer Harvey A. Schwartz, who represents Scott Rodrigues in his lawsuit against Scotts, which is based in Marysville, Ohio. "Next they're going to say, 'You don't get enough exercise' or 'Both your parents died of a heart attack at age 45 so we don't want to hire you because you're more likely to need medical care,' " Schwartz said. "I don't think anybody ought to be smoking cigarettes, but as long as it's legal it's none of the employer's business as long as it doesn't impact the workplace." Scotts officials could not be reached for comment. The case illustrates the latest in a series of aggressive anti-smoking policies being adopted nationwide. In Massachusetts last year, a Boston Housing Court jury ruled that a South Boston couple could be evicted from their apartment for heavy smoking, even though smoking was allowed in their lease. Rodrigues, 30, a pack-a-day smoker when he was hired by Scotts earlier this year, was fired in September after a drug test showed high nicotine levels in his urine. At the time of the test, Rodrigues was down to about a half-dozen cigarettes daily, but he believes the test may have registered nicotine in his system as a result of the Nicorette anti-smoking gum he had been chewing in an effort to kick the habit. "That was the really crazy thing -- I was trying to stop smoking," he said. Rodrigues said he decided to file suit because, "What's to make them stop at just cigarettes? If they're a Republican company, can they try and figure out who you vote for and if you vote for the Democrats they'll fire you? What if you don't want to hire women, so if you have Y chromosome in your drug test you fail? "It sounds a little extreme," he added, "but it also would have sounded extreme to me five years ago if you told me you could be fired if nicotine is found in your drug test."
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Apr 11, 2011 23:50:45 GMT
Middle age married white males are the most discriminated against group in the world today.
If one of them goes into a single's bar and approaches a hot 24 year old single girl, the first thing she wants to know is whether he's married. If he says yes she discriminates right away. If he says no and tells a lie she really gets angry later on.
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Post by iamjumbo on Apr 12, 2011 18:45:25 GMT
Middle age married white males are the most discriminated against group in the world today. If one of them goes into a single's bar and approaches a hot 24 year old single girl, the first thing she wants to know is whether he's married. If he says yes she discriminates right away. If he says no and tells a lie she really gets angry later on. but that's because a married man, regardless of age or race, has NO right approaching a hot 24 year old single girl in a single's bar to begin with
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